Author stance in doctoral dissertations of native and non-native speakers of English: a corpus-based study on epistemic adverbs

[EN]Our study concentrates on the epistemic adverbs used in conveying author stance in academic English. The Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger, 1996) was run to three sets of corpora comprising doctoral dissertations written by native and non-native academic authors of English. Epistemic adverbs occurring in the dissertations were identified through a computer programme and their frequencies were separately computed for each corpus. Lastly, a log-likelihood test was administered to see whether there is a statistically significant difference across the groups in concern concerning the use of these adverbs.

Non-verbal markers of modality and evidentiality in MarENG

[EN] This article examines a variety of options for expressing speaker and writer stance in a subcorpus of MarENG, a maritime English learning tool sponsored by the EU (35,041 words). Non-verbal markers related to key areas of modal expression are presented; (1)epistemic adverbs and adverbial expressions, (2) epistemic adjectives, (3) deontic adjectives, (4) evidential adverbs, (5) evidential adjectives, (6) evidential interpersonal markers, and (7) single adverbials conveying the speaker’s attitudes, feelings or value judgments. The overall aim is to present an overview of how these non-verbal markers operate in this LSP genre.

A contrastive analysis of epistemic modality in scientific English

[ES] This paper investigates the use of epistemic expressions in scientific English. The main aim of this research is to analyse if native speakers of English use epistemic modality in the same way than non-native speakers of English and to detect the most outstanding cognitive implications of this fact. The corpus used in this research contains 50 research papers written by native English speakers and 50 scientific papers written by Spanish researchers who use English to communicate internationally. As epistemic modals are used to indicate the possibility of some piece of knowledge, this paper focuses on epistemic modal verbs in order to detect if native speakers of English and non-native speakers of English communicate modality in the same way, or if there are differences in frequency and use. The results obtained in this analysis indicated that there are differences in the frequency of use of epistemic expressions, even if the intention of the writers is the same.

Ciencia compartida

[ES] Ciencia compartida es una experiencia desarrollada entre la Facultad de Ciencias del Mar y la Biblioteca universitaria a iniciativa de jóvenes investigadores (becarios y doctorandos). Se trata de un ciclo anual de charlas semanales que se graban y difunden a través de youtube y repositorio institucional de acceso abierto ACCEDA, en las que los ponentes son profesores, investigadores en formación de la Facultad de Ciencias del Mar, invitados de otras universidades y centros de investigación, empresarios del sector y particulares o grupos en torno a la conservación del mar y del medio ambiente. El objetivo es múltiple: difundir lo que se hace en la Facultad de Ciencias del Mar de la ULPGC a la sociedad, los grupos de investigación interactúan, los alumnos se enriquecen de estos conocimientos, y los becarios aprenden a presentar sus trabajos, creándose al mismo tiempo cohesión y vida universitaria

Frecuencia de los formantes de las vocales medias en sílaba final de palabra con elisión de -/s/: un estudio con materiales de la norma culta de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

[ES]El propósito de este artículo es comprobar si la supresión de -/s/ final de palabra condiciona la articulación de las vocales medias pronunciadas por hablantes con estudios universitarios de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Para ello, no solo se calculan las frecuencias de los formantes de /e/ y /o/ y se establecen sus campos de dispersión, sino que, además, se examina si la información gramatical de la consonante elidida o los factores sexo y edad pueden influir en la altura frecuencial de los formantes.